But I fail to see how either gingerism or prevenge are at all “representative” of the 21st century. And I seriously doubt either will last (although gingerism has a shot of lingering on in some of the language’s darker alleys for a while; prevenge is way to cutesy to survive).

I call shenanigans on that “evidence”! The giant Japanese monster forms of Barbra Streisand, Leonard Maltin, and Robert Smith have been sent to rochambeau you for it. Then they will put hot sauce in your eye, turning you into a zombie!!!

One isolated topical episode ridiculing something does not a common usage make. FWIW, the Wikipedia entry for the episode uses the word ginger in quotes (also several people keep insisting that it was used because it’s an anagram of the n-word).

To be honest, I can’t recall hearing the usage in the US before that episode, although I had heard it as a color term ("ginger hair”, “ginger-bearded”, “ginger cat”, but not just “ginger” = redhead, red-haired person).

“ginger” = redhead, red-haired person is given the first pronunciation in the UK, not like the spice, though I don’t know about “gingerism”.

I watch a lot of British TV and I’ve heard “he’s jin-jer” not “he’s Ging-er”. If there is in fact a different pronunciation, which one is famous red-head Ginger Spice ( Geri Haliwell of the Spice Girls)?

To be honest, I can’t recall hearing the usage in the US before that episode, although I had heard it as a color term ("ginger hair”, “ginger-bearded”, “ginger cat”, but not just “ginger” = redhead, red-haired person).

Also, I’d say in the US that ginger hair is particularly lightish red hair (darker than strawberry blond but a good bit lighter than titian, like Morris the Cat or Garfield) and doesn’t even apply to the full on orange and auburn shades. Possibly Simon Pegg but not Alyson Hannigan

If you’re just saying someone is ginger-haired or ginger, factually, without any intended insult both g’s are pronounced soft (jin-jer). If you are being insulting it can be pronounced with a hard g and no soft g sound in the middle (ging-er, like singer), but by no means always or even the majority of the time, and its quite new. (I’ve taken to calling my tortoiseshell and white cat Ging Ging (like Sing Sing)). Its almost always more of a joke, though obviously some people can use it to be seriously nasty or bitchy.

If you get the Catherine Tate Show in the US, she has sketches on her show about ginger haired people being treated like second class citizens. I’ve missed the South Park episode.

In the UK we do refer to people being auburn or titian haired, or strawberry blonde but in general ginger covers all shades of redheads.

I posted about ginger at LH, and it seems there is indeed such a pronunciation—one commenter calls it “schoolboy slang at least 10 years old.” Interesting; like Dr T, I thought it was extremely weird and implausible.

So bayard’s statement that ““ginger” = redhead, red-haired person is given the first pronunciation in the UK” is roughly comparable to saying “In the US, ‘party’ in the sense of a social event is pronounced ‘par-tay’”.